"I started my Ph.D. at another school. I felt like I was nothing but a number there. I got lost in the shuffle, so I transferred to Queen’s. It was like night and day. The department here is small and I had no trouble forming a committee. The supervisors are easy to talk to. It’s unbelievable in terms of support. It’s a very friendly environment, and when you’re not from Kingston, it’s nice to have that support."

Degrees Offered / Length of Program

Method of Completion

• M.A. Thesis option:one core course, two half-courses, and a thesis weighted at half of the total program 
• M.A. Essay option:one core course, four half-courses and an essay weighted at one-quarter of the total program 
• Ph.D.:course work, qualifying exam, thesis defense

Degree Level Expectations & Learning Outcomes

M.A. - view this information as a pdf(101KB)

PhD - view this information as a pdf (102KB)

Cross Disciplinary Aspects

We are part of The Surveillance Project, a multidisciplinary international research initiative which studies issues ranging from supermarket loyalty cards to police networks searching for suspects. We also collaborate with other departments in the university including – Development Studies, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies and Kinesiology & Health Studies.

Supervisors and Fields of Study

Our programs reflect the expertise of our faculty in their emphasis on four core areas: 

• Critical Sociological Theory
• Feminist Sociology
• Social Control, Deviance and Criminology, Socio-Legal Studies
• Sociology of Communication and Information Technology

Applicants to the Master's program are not required to find a suitable supervisor in advance. However, we do recommend that PhD students study faculty research areas and contact potential supervisors before starting their program.

• Stephen Baron - Criminology; young offenders
• Rob Beamish - Early modernity; Sociology of the body; Hegel and Marx on Consciousness and Labour; History of sociological theory; Noetics
• Annette Burfoot - Visual science studies (anatomy, cancer care, science fiction); technology studies (political economy of manufacturing, reproductive & genetic engineering); cultural studies
• Richard Day - Social, political and cultural theory; cultural studies; radical social movements; anarchism; indigenism, colonialism, alternatives to development (not available for supervision)
• Martin Hand - Emergent media, digital culture, photography and imaging, consumer culture, domestic technologies, everyday life, sociological theory
• Fiona Kay - sociology of law, work and occupations; sociology of professions; gender; mixed research methods
• Catherine Krull - Diaspora/transnationalism, inequality, cuban studies, reproductive/body politics,  postcolonialism, family diversity/policies, indigenous studies, feminist theory, qualitative methods
• Cynthia Levine-Rasky - Race, ethnicity, critical race theory, whiteness; immigrants and refugees; qualitative methods; intersectionality; inequality
• David Lyon - Surveillance; identification; biometrics. histories and cultures of surveillance. surveillance in Canada and internationally. religion and the post-secular
• David Murakami-Wood - Surveillance and security, especially in international comparative perspective (Japan, Brazil, UK); cities, particularly global / world cities; globalization and global flows; new technologies; risk, disaster, war and terrorism; science fiction and futurology; actor-network / assemblage approaches to social theory
• Frank Pearce - Classical and contemporary sociological theory, ontology and epistemology (Marxism, radical Durkheimianism, Foucauldianism); sociology of sacrifice; sociology of law, crime and deviance
• Vincent Sacco - Victimization & community reactions to crime; urban sociology; sociology of deviance; mass media; social constructionism
• Sarita Srivastava - Social movements; critical race theory, anti-racist theory and practice, feminist movements and feminist theory; sociology of gender and race; sociology of emotion

Employment Opportunities

Graduates from the Queen’s Sociology department have secured jobs in:

• Academia – tenured or tenure-track jobs at universities across Canada
• Research – such as the RCMP, provincial governments, Statistics Canada, Japanese Foreign Service, Department of Health and Welfare, Research Scientist, Department of National Defence
• Government Services – including the Ministry of Justice, Statistics Canada, the Ministry of Citizenship & Immigration, Ministry of Health and the Japanese Foreign Service, Children's Aid Society
• Other Professions: including law, social work and teaching

Funding Information

• M.A.: a guaranteed minimum of $14,000 for 2 years
• Ph.D.: a guaranteed minimum of $18,000 for 4 years

Applicants are encouraged to apply for external awards such as SSHRC and OGS. Entering graduate students who win federal government tri-council awards are automatically provided a $5,000 (M.A.)and a $7500 (Ph.D) top-up award by Queen’s in the first year.

Academic Prerequisites

• M.A.: BA Honours in Sociology (or equivalent such as communications, criminology, law, women’s studies) with a minimum B+ standing.
• Ph.D.: M.A. in Sociology, minimum A- average

Other Requirements

Ph.D. students must identify one of the four research areas as your primary speciality area, to be sent directly to the Department.

All applicants must submit an unpublished writing sample (i.e. a term paper) in a related field.

Test Requirements

For international students if required a minimum TOEFL score of 600 (paper based) or TOEFL iBT minimum scores of: writing (24/30); speaking (22/30); reading (22/30); listening (20/30), for a total of 88/120. Applicants must have the minimum score in each test as well as the minimum overall score.

Program Profiles

• Stacey Alarie - Investigating re-entry processes for Provincial female offenders...
• Rebecca Scott - The adventure of a lifetime: Interdisciplinary travels to Brazil...
• Becky Pero - Everything came together for Becky
• Shauna Shiels - indigenous feminism is the research area of focus for Shauna...
• Sachil Singh - Using a surveillance studies lens for his graduate research

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